Does this not deserve more coverage?

Some of you may, or may not, have been made aware that Stockport recently became one of the latest club to be forced into administration - the words 'liquidation' are being mentioned as well, yet the news that the administrators had made manager Jim Gannon, his assistant Peter Ward and other coaching staff 'redundant' only yesterday are nowhere to be found, unless you root around on the BBC website on the football section home page, with nothing at all on the 'sports section homepage' at all...

I find this absolutely disgraceful!

I find this even more disgraceful, and insulting, given the fact that most on the home page is reaction to Chelski's champions league exit and Darren Fletcher being 'given hope' over his sending off that means he misses the champions league final - on this note I feel that he has been totally hard done by, but rules are rules, by all means change them, but change them over the summer! You cannot change them now; then again the big boys tend to get what they want, when they want it. Manyoo should be able to appeal, but as the rules currently are they cannot, so should not be able to.

Anyway, back to the point, should things like this situation with Stockport - and not just Stockport, but news with the likes of the Saints (I purposely do not cover this in any details as I have little or no doubt what direction this would go off in and for me this is not a front page debate that I want us having here) and Darlington and so on, who are all encountering problems, granted some of the members of each clubs boards are often to blame - not feature more prominently on the homepage of the BBC football pages?

Believe it or not, life does exist outside of the premier league, not that many, if any, media outlets would let you know this...

Quite how making the manger and other coaching members redundant helps Stockport anyway I do not know, well apart from saving money, which is what it is all about when you are in administration and that is what administrators do.

Granted I do not know the full details as to why Stockport have ended up in the trouble they have, but all in all in most instances it is because 'the dream' is chased, but the 'bigger brother' of the premier league, and the money that he fails to share with his 'runt of a brother' has knock-on consequences down the line.

With all the money in the top flight, and even the lowest in the premier league earn millions, if only a small amount of this was filtered through the leagues it would make football in this country much better, more competitive and basically much more enjoyable for all. As it is the more the big boys have the less others do and the more the game suffers as a result - the bottom will fall out of the game one day though, mark my words...

All in all the lack of coverage on this issue with Stockport, and as I say other clubs that are 'smaller', unless you 'look for it' just shows the total distain that anything outside of the premier league is given. 'The premier league is king and that is all that matters in football' may as well be 'the public message' that this countries media portrays, as that is the '(not so) private message' they give out by the lack of coverage!

Comments

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Good point Rug. I do sometimes feel a little guilty that I don't support my home town somewhat. Although Chester have been relegated I don't think that the financial side is too bad which is lucky. I think it is pretty disgraceful of the BBC not to make more of a feature of Stockport's plight. Perhaps one 'good' thing to come of larger clubs going into adminisration and falling down the leagues is that more people will take notice of Leagues One & Two and the Conference. Now that the BBC hardly has any football they could start showing a Conference game each weekend? It should be cheap for them to get the rights, struggling clubs will get more money, people will take more of an interest in lower leagues and BBC would be doing a favour to the community. Think about it!

Good idea Squee. If you think of some of the publicity we have had recently, I do think Stockport are better off without it. If you aren't in the top four or have relatives in the media, then forget it.

I was very sad to hear of the Stockport redundancies and feel the media should give it far more coverage. Agree with Squee (Sarah) that the lower leagues need more live coverage to help those clubs out.

Its shameful that something as significant as any football club going into administration/liquidation can go uncommented on, an absolute disgrace. As for the lower leagues, I have a friend who supports Torquay Utd, and people like that are true grass roots fans. I don't always root for teams that friends/colleagues support, usually the opposite but in this case I can't help it. I also enjoy occasional visits to my second team Havant &W, its good, its real. The media have got so far removed from real football and real fans, thats why Setanta have put both Newcastle-Pompey and Pompey-Sunderland on Monday nights. I can't see it changing either.

Good article Rug. Its a crying shame that clubs are forced to fold through finances. Yes clearly poor management of funds can lead to this ie Leeds Utd, but it is so hard for a club only getting a few hundred fans through the gate each week, with gate money only just about covering ref fees and electric bills for flood lights etc. Surely the FA should have it written into the contracts with Sky and Setanta that a proportion of monies are taken and put into a large fund that is then evenly distributed across the other three leagues